Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics

by Bonner, William; Rajiva, Lila

• ISBN13: 9780470112328
• ISBN10: 0470112328
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-08-31
• Publisher: Wiley
• More Book Details
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Summary

Why Going Against the Grain Pays. Bestselling author Bill Bonner has long been a maverick observer of the financial and political world, sharpening his sardonic wit, in particular, on the vagaries of the investing public. Market booms and busts, tulip manias and dotcom bubbles, venture capitalists and vulture funds, he lets you know, are best explained not by dry statistics and obscure theories but by the metaphors and analogies of literature. Now, in Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, Bonner and freelance journalist Lila Rajiva use literary economics to offer broader insights into mass behavior and its devastating effects on society. Why is it, they ask, that perfectly sane and responsible individuals can get together, and by some bizarre alchemy turn into an irrational mob? What makes them trust charlatans and demagogues who manipulate their worst instincts? Why do they abandon good sense, good behavior and good taste when an empty slogan is waved in front of them. Why is the road to hell paved with so many sterling intentions? Why is there a fool on every corner and a knave in every public office? In attempting an answer, the authors weave a light-hearted journey through history, politics and finance to show group think at work in an improbable array of instances, from medieval crusades to the architectural follies of hedge-fund managers. Their journey takes them ultimately to the desk of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank and to a cautionary tale of the current bubble economy. They warn that the gush of credit let loose by Alan Greenspan and multiplied by the sophisticated number games of Wall Street whizzes is fraught with perils for the unwary. Boom without end, pronounces The Street. But Bonner and Rajiva are more cynical. When the higher math and the greater greed come together, watch out below! Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets ends by giving concrete advice on how readers can avoid what the authors call the 'public spectacle' of modern finance, and become, instead, 'private' investors - knowing their own mind and following their own intuitions. The authors have no gimmicks to offer here - but instead give a better understanding of the dynamics of market behavior, allowing prudent investors to protect themselves from the fads and follies of the investment markets. William R. Bonner is President and CEO of Agora Inc., one of the world's largest financial newsletter companies. He is the creator of the Daily Reckoning, a contrarian financial newsletter sent via e-mail (www.dailyreckoning.com). Bonner is previously the author, with Addison Wiggin, of the international bestsellers, Financial Reckoning Day (0-471-44973-3) and Empire of Debt (0-471-73902-2). Lila Rajiva is a freelance journalist and the author of The Language of Empire, a ground-breaking study of the media coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. She is a contributing editor/writer at Agora Publishing Group.

Author Biography

William (Bill) Bonner is President and CEO of Agora Inc., one of the world's largest financial newsletter companies (www.agorafinancial.com). He is the creator of the Daily Reckoning, a contrarian financial newsletter (www.dailyreckoning.com). Bonner is also the author, with Addison Wiggin, of the international bestsellers Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt.

Lila Rajiva is a political journalist and the author of The Language of Empire, a groundbreaking study of the media coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. She is a contributing editor/writer at Agora Publishing Group and the creator of the blog, The Mind-Body Politic (www.lilarajiva.com).

Table of Contents

A Critique of Impure Reason
Do-Gooders Gone Bad	p. 3
Love in the Time of Viagra	p. 21
The Transit of Venus	p. 47
Witch Hunts and War Drums
The Devil Made Them Do It	p. 75
Words of War	p. 98
Militant Messiahs
War and Remembrance	p. 113
Empire of Delusion	p. 132
Heroes of the Revolution	p. 150
Flattening the Globe
The Number Game	p. 185
The Flat Earth Society	p. 197
What the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo Didn't Know	p. 216
The Bubble Kings
Fin de Bubble	p. 245
The Million-Dollar Trailer	p. 266
Central Bank Bamboozle	p. 280
The Mother of the Mother of All Bubbles	p. 296
Far from the Madding Mob
How Not to Be Champed by Wall Street	p. 321
The Dupe of Hearts	p. 364
Notes	p. 391
Index	p. 413
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